At least 12 protesters were charged on Thursday for their actions during a June 2024 pro-Palestinian protest at Stanford University in which demonstrators barricaded themselves inside the office of the school president.
The prosecutors said those charged from the ages of 19 to 32 years reportedly entered the building and demonstrated a “conspiracy to occupy” it, adding that at least one suspect entered the building by breaking a window.
Dozens of other protesters surrounded the building and chanted: “Palestine will be free.”
The university said at the time that 13 people were arrested during the protest, one police officer was injured and the building suffered “extensive” damage.
The protesters immortalised a Palestinian doctor, Adnan Al-Bursh, who died in an Israeli prison after months of detention by renaming the building “Dr. Adnan's Office”.
US President Donald Trump's administration has threatened to withhold federal funding from universities, including Stanford, over allegations that they failed to stop antisemitism and intimidation of Jewish students.
According to the protesters, their criticism of Israel's military assault on Gaza has been wrongly conflated with antisemitism.
